Many Algerian employers are lobbying for a return of their country’s weekends over Saturdays and Sundays, rather than Thursdays and Fridays, saying the current policy is cutting into foreign trade revenues. Algeria began observing its weekend from Thursday to Friday in 1976, in recognition of the fact that Friday is a holy day under Islam, the state religion of Algeria.

Coverage of Aids in Africa typically focuses on the dire situation in countries south of the Sahara, which are home to almost two thirds of people infected with HIV globally, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids. But what of the countries that lie further north and along the Mediterranean? In the case of one of these nations, Algeria, concern about the pandemic is mounting.